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It’s been without a doubt the silliest week ever. Truffle goes to print Friday, I’m at hospital tomorrow morning and then away on a jolly from thurs am so technically truffle goes to print tomorrow, sometime in between the hours of 11.30am and 5pm. Wish me luck.

I’m so looking forward to my few days away, I totally deserve it. I’ll write about it over the next week or so. In the meantime, thanks for reading here. I love seeing you all come and go through my stats. Apart from you 2 knitters, but even you both make me smile sometimes.

And it’s my emails. Sorry. I’m a week behind and it’s going up get worse, I’m out if office / working elsewhere / away with friends for most of this week. I refuse to beat myself up over not being able to do everything in the world so am letting go of the guilt.

I could have used tonight to catch up, but instead I made a huge mess and some cakepops with my girls. Much better plan, dontcha think?

Strength. I am learning to hate that stupid word. Once more I’ve been told in exactly these words that the reason I don’t get very much support from a certain group of people is because I am strong and don’t need it. “Not many people could survive what you’ve been through, they said, we know you can cope, we know you are strong. Other people are not strong, they need us more. They would never be able to go through what you’ve been through. They are jealous of you and everything you’ve got (WTF) and its not fair for us to choose sides and be seen to be supporting you more than them because that’s not fair.”

Right. Yeah. That would be unfair. So lets just leave me here with 4 kids in a house that I can’t afford with part time work and not knowing where next months rent is going to come from shall we? Don’t feel that you need to look after me, because I am strong. Right.

So because I have strength I don’t need support? I don’t understand that.

Yes, I’m strong. I have to be. Because when I’m not strong I still don’t get support. When I fall apart and email family and friends and say “help, I Need you, I can’t do this any more” what do I get? I get nothing. OR at the very most I get a “you’ll be OK, you’re strong, everything always works out for you in the end” type of reply. I find it so hard to ask for help, I’ve asked a few times over the last few years and when people who are supposed to be close to me don’t get how hard it is for me to ask for help and then refuse to give it it nearly kills me. This is why I don’t bother asking any more. I am strong, I can do this on my own.

That time last summer when my best friend thought she had lost me, there were other people around that day. Other people in the same room as me who didn’t come over and hug me because they thought I probably needed to be on my own. Which means that they didn’t approve of me leaving my husband and couldn’t bear to offer me any support or love because he obviously needed it more. Its so fucking unfair.

So if there is someone in your life who is strong, who copes, who you think doesn’t need anyone please give them a call or a text or an email and tell them that you love them. Ask them if they need any help with anything, you might be surprised to find out that they are not as strong as you think they are.

The time for me wanting someone to help me has passed. Now I actually don’t want to share what I have with anyone. I am strong, I can do this on my own and I will be OK. I spent so long wanting people to help me, saying to my husband “I do so much for so many people and nobody does anything back for me” those days are gone. Now everything I have is put into me and my kids. And those people who support and look after me. My best friend has nothing, even less than me and yet she gives so much. I know that she would give me her last £10 if she knew I needed it more than her. When you have nothing you learn a new level of generosity. Possessions, money, mean nothign when you don’t have them. I can’t ever imagine having a savings account again. I’ve survived for so long with pennies in my bank account and relying on charity for food that I honestly can’t imagine living any other way.

But this is me, and I’m OK. And once I learn to stop hoping that other people will one day love me and support me in the way that I think they should I’ll be even better. I thought I was there, but then things are said and they break my heart, one word at a time. And no matter when I try and explain myself I end up looking like the selfish one. The one who says “love me more”, when all I’m really trying to say is “love me the amount I deserve to be loved.” That’s all. I didn’t ever think it was too much to ask. But now I seem to think it probably is.

So here’s to being strong. For what that’s worth. All I can see is that NOT being strong gets you a lot more attention and care than being strong, but you know what? If I could go back and change my personality I don’t think I’d change myself just to make other people love me more. I’d probably choose to be exactly the same as I am now.

 

I headed out on my bike this morning, was going to go for a mega bike ride but it was still too icy and snowy on the track so I didn’t make it that far. Far enough to get my heart beating fast and burn off a few calories which is a good thing.

But better than that it gave me chance to think. And do you know what, I’m pretty damn proud of myself - this is what I realised.

When I left my husband last year my finances were based on me being awarded the tax credits I was entitled to plus earning a certain amount each month. Well, tax credits only awarded me half of that amount and I’m still appealing against the rest of it (only been 7 months nearly and counting) and I lost that job back in September. October and November I worked and earned 1/4 of what I needed and then in December I earned nothing. Zero. Scary huh.

January has been better. I’ve invoiced out for 75% of what I was earning back last summer - but it hasn’t all been paid and I still don’t have my tax credit money in.

I’ve survived by cutting back on everythign. I can’t remember the last time I had a chinese takeaway (yes, I can, it was when my ex hubby bought it round one evening) and when I went out this Friday night I spent less than £3 all night. I don’t eat anywhere near as much as I used to and I do borrow food from mum and dad when I go. I don’t waste anything in terms of food and I buy cheaper brands where I can. I have sold pretty much everything I own on ebay and somehow I’ve managed to keep me and the 4 kids alive and also pay my childminder on time every month and rent, although not always on time!

I don’t actually know how I’ve done it, but I have. And I’ve done it all while recovering emotionally from depression, having left my husband and a failed business. With the anti help of many people who take every opportunity to spread the hate about me.

I think that’s pretty damned impressive to be honest.

I have more work booked in for the next few months, tax credits are due to decide on my appeal in the next 2 weeks and I still have a couple of jobs to hear back from, 1 full time and 1 part time. Things are looking up for me. I’m hoping that there won’t ever be a time again when I am borrowing money to pay my rent (and to date I’ve paid back everything I’ve borrowed from friends and family over the last 6 months) and taking bags of pennies into the bank to convert into notes to put petrol in my car.

Living like this has taught me a lot. Its taught me that I am bloody tough and that I am pretty damned special. Its also taught me that being happy doesn’t mean that you have lots, I have nothing. The last 12 months have seen me lose so much, business, husband, home, possesions, friends etc. But I’m still here, and I’m happier now than I have been for a long time. I have lots of very good things in my life, and some struggles still to face. But I know I can do it.

I should cycle more often, it makes me all thoughtful, as you can see! I might sneak in a run with my little boy tomorrow if I can juggle the childcare. He’ll like that, and so will I. Wonder how far he can run before he has to stop talking, last time we ran a mile together (in 12 minutes without stopping or walking once) he chatted all the way around and sprinted the last 200 yards. Maybe 2 miles will take it out of him?

I guess there should be a trigger warning here, this is a bit of a dark post about the worst days of my depression. Thank goodness its Friday. I don’t know what’s been up with this week, its felt like about a month long.

A lot of memories have come back to the surface this week, mainly to do with my depression. I should really think about getting some counselling I think, especially as now hubby and I are not going to relate any more, it helped me a lot to have someone to talk to about what was going on with me. But until then I think I’ll just write about things as they come into my head.

Claire said to me yesterday that she was remembering the day last summer when she honestly didnt think I’d make it to the end of the week. I’d not slept for about 48 hours and had just cried for most of that time. We sat in a pub together and I don’t think I spoke to her for hours, I just sat there with tears running down my face. I didn’t even know I was crying, couldn’t feel the tears. I’d actually given up and gone already. She made me eat and drink and took me to the doctors and then phoned me every hour on the hour for the next 2/3 days. She said yesterday that all she could remember was me sitting there in front of her in a striped top and my hair in bunches and her thinking “oh fuck, how can I fix this” She really thought she had lost me. I don’t know how I’m still here to be honest.

Here little story about her memories made me laugh when we spoke about it, although that day is definitely not a laughing matter. I’d made peace with the fact that I couldn’t do it any more. I didn’t want to hurt anyone but I knew that the kids would be better off without me, that nobody really needed me, that I wasn’t adding anything to the world apart from pain and sadness. What was the point?

I can look back on that now and see how it was totally the depression talking, it wasn’t me at all. I’m strong enough now that if I have a bad day I can see what is depression related and what is just a bad day. But when you are in the middle of it you cant see that at all. It all makes perfect sense.

What I wish I’d done is admit that I was suffering from depression earlier and also that once I had admitted to it that I would have been more open. I remember people who knew saying to me “you can’t let your staff know, you can’t tell anyone” because they thought I should be ashamed of it. So I hid it. I should never have hid it, I should have spoken about it. Because only by speaking about it can you beat it. Depression feeds on fear and embarrassment and shame, I know that now.

So, here I am talking about it. I never thought of my depression as a black dog although I know a lot of people do and that helps them. To me it was like a field and a cliff. I don’t know if I can describe it properly and I’m not even going to try today, I need to pick myself up in a minute and get on with my day. But I am going to pick up a pencil and paper and try and draw it later on this afternoon. If I can’t write it then I can draw it, sometimes pictures are easier than words.

If you haven’t watched this before then take a couple of minutes and watch it now. Its harrowing but oh so real, even though I never saw my depression as a dog it makes a million times sense to me.

I need to get back into running again, its the routine that I find hard to organise. On the days that the kids are with their dad its easy (ish) to find the time in between work, eating, sleeping and my wild social life (hahaha) but on the days that they are with me its pretty impossible. I can’t take all 4 of them with me, and I can’t leave them at home on their own while I run. I’ve been tempted to talk to next door’s teenager about babysitting just for half an hour but then I can’t afford to pay her. So there is no real win there, unless I run laps of my garden on the days that I have the kids, but my garden is very small and my neighbours already think I’m insane.

I love to run.

It really relaxes me, I am both competitive and antisocial so its the perfect exercise. I can beat my last lap time, my average speed, my fastest mile per minute while all the time not needing to speak to other people. I once ended up running with 2 guys who I turned onto the track to at the same time and it wasn’t good. They felt obliged to talk, I felt obliged to alter my pace to fit with them. It wasn’t fun. I love to run and count my footsteps, to synch my breathing with my steps. I don’t listen to music or anything, I just run, and breathe and count.

Talking of my wild social life, its coming up to my bi-monthly night out where I spend less than £10 and feel very old sitting in a pub drinking diet coke and watching all the young attractive people have fun. How are you supposed to socialise when you’re close to 40 and don’t really know many people where you live? Oh, and when you are too antisocial to go to gyms and work with a random selection of people who you would not choose to spend time with outside of work? Answers on a postcard to……